The subject of the application is an airbag arrangement having a carrier and a surface of leather or of imitation leather arranged at the visible side on the carrier, wherein the surface has a uniform thickness and the carrier has a thinned carrier portion introduced along a tear line. A reinforcement layer having a local weakening is arranged between the carrier and the surface, with the surface being directly connected to the reinforcement layer.
The use of high-quality materials such as leather or imitation leather continually results in problems in the discharge region of airbags. This is inter alia due to the fact that a leather surface of usual thickness not only does not tear, or only tears poorly, and does not allow an opening of the airbag flap disposed below. In the past, decorative seams were previously used in the prior art which trace the course of a tear line disposed beneath the surface. In this respect, the part regions of the surface are connected using a yarn, with the yarn having a lower tear resistance than the leather or imitation leather used. A controlled tearing open of the airbag flap hereby becomes possible.
More recently attempts have been made to avoid the use of decorative seams. FR 2721876 A1 thus shows, for example, an airbag cover apparatus which has a leather surface of uniform thickness and is arranged on a carrier. In this respect, a foam layer is arranged sectionally between the carrier and the surface and a spacer fabric is arranged in the region of a gap let into the carrier. The gap arranged in the carrier traverses the spacer fabric and ends at the lower side of the leather surface. It is thus possible due to the strength of the spacer fabric to enable a tearing open of the airbag flap along the groove. The disadvantage of such a design of the airbag arrangement is the clearly perceptible grooving in the region of the leather surface.
DE 10 2005 034 354 A1 shows an alternative approach. The airbag cover disclosed there has a carrier, a closed-pore foam layer, a film layer and a visible cover of leather arranged on the film layer. To allow a reliable tearing open along a tear line, the layer cover of leather is locally weakened in the region of the tear line, with the local weakening being formed continuously. It is possible due to the continuous transition to design the weakening such that it is not visible. A serious disadvantage of the subject matter disclosed in DE 10 2005 034 354 A1 is the process of the local weakening of the visible cover of leather. The introduction of the local weakening only allows small production tolerances so that a large quantity of rejects is often produced. This increases costs considerably.